4 Opening batsmen who changed the course of Test match batting

#2 Matthew Hayden (1993-2009)

The destructive monk

A farrago of destruction and consistency, Matthew Hayden was a bully as an opening batsman. After spending seven years in the wilderness in the shadow of Michael Slater and Mark Taylor, Hayden announced himself to the cricketing folklore with path-breaking performances in the 2001 Indo-Aus Border Gavaskar Trophy.

The swashbuckling opener who achieved the distinction of scoring at least a thousand runs a year between the period of 2001 to 2005, accumulated 549 runs including a sublime double-hundred in Chennai (203) against a rampaging Harbhajan Singh.

Hayden, in few years time would go on smashing the then highest Test score in International cricket when he (380) clobbered an insipid Zimbabwean bowling attack in the summer of 2003. One of Hayden's most endearing quality was to never let the opposition bowlers get on the top of him irrespective of the format of the game. There was off-course a lot of preparation that went into it.

Hayden would spend long hours before the start of a Test to visualize every minute detail of opposition's strengths and weaknesses. It was essentially the involvement of himself- mind, body, and spirit, in a bid to execute the process.

In a pulsating 16-year-old career, Hayden formed an enviable opening partnership with Justin Langer, a perfect blend of fire and calm. The Hayden-Langer combo opened the innings for Australia on 113 occasions and finished as the second greatest opening pair in the history of the game, having amassed 5655 runs at an average of 51.88.

Hayden finished his career in 2009 with 8625 runs to his name at an average of 50.73. While an average above 50 is considered as a benchmark of greatness, Hayden's true legacy lies in the paradigm shift that he triggered along with Sehwag in the first decade of the 21st century.